Sunday, September 6, 2009

#3 Highlight of Trip to Portland

Born ten years apart, at either end of six siblings, it took many years into our adulthood, for my younger sister and me to discover that our DNA helixes stored a frightening amount of identical code. Being a fully functional 10-years-old when she joined our family, I alternately found her delightful, adorable, insufferable, and annoying, and then I left home to be grown-up. At some point in our infrequent reunions we discovered we had the same taste in movies, literature, and to our mother’s horror, political leanings. We had both inherited our mother’s love of cooking, and shared the family trait of obsessing over whatever might be leading us by the nose at the moment. She is the one person on this planet that can finish my sentences, and would know exactly what I am referring to given the less and concrete, “Remember the time, we were at the place, and the thing, did that thing with the other thing.” Portland, with all of its many allures, is only more delightful with such a resident.

As I mentioned before we both share a passion for cooking, although the younger of us took it to obsessive heights quite some time ago. In a desire to become proficient at making sublime cuisine from the best ingredients she could round up in her diminutive kitchen, she took the study of cooking to extremes, stopping just shy of cooking school. She has more cookbooks than the 641 section of my public library, although she claims to have culled them at some point in the recent past. If you are lucky enough to have her cook for you, you will wonder why we ever bothered to eat out while we were there. What she can do with her weekly share of fresh produce from her CSA, (community sponsored agriculture), a little olive oil, and preserved lemon, would make Nigela Lawson and Ina Garten sit up and take notice.

A few years ago, possibly after listening to me blather on and on about the wonders of my trade, she decided to go back to school and become a legitimate children’s librarian (unlike myself who merely feigns legitimacy); thus cementing our shared interests into something beyond the superficial to a deep and abiding obsession for the greater good.

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About Me

I work as a librarian at a K-6 elementary school. I see over 900 students a week. During which I wheedle, coax, and cajole them into believing that there is nothing better for their intellectual growth, mental health, personal enjoyment, future earning potential, and complextion than a steady diet of reading whatever excites them.
I am pretty much incapable of carrying on a conversation that is not in some way related to children’s literature. I detest social functions which might involve me making small talk with someone who has never heard of Mo Willems, Jon Scieszka, Lois Lowry, or Jane Yolen. I’ve started this blog in an attempt to carry on the conversations I would like to have at parties, even if I do just end up talking to myself.